Auditor General Stevenson Kumphasa says his office has not sent auditors to Malawi foreign missions because of lack of money.

Kamphasa: No money to carry out probe

Finance minister Goodall Gondwe and Foreign Affairs minister Francis Kasaira said in May the government would send auditors in all foreign missions following reports of massive loot of public financial resources in Ethiopia, Japan and Zambia among others.

“We are waiting for the funding for this exercise which we were supposed to do in May. As soon as we get the funding from Treasury, we will go wherever the government wants us to go,” said Kamphasa.

He said the foreign missions have not been audited for many years, saying this was why diplomats heading the missions colluded with accounts clerks to defraud the government of huge sums of money.

Only one diplomat, Doreen Kapanga, who was at Malawi’s Addis Ababa mission as deputy ambassador was arrested on accusations of huge sums of money from the embassy.

Japan’s former ambassador Reuben Ngwenya and Zambia’s former High Commissioner David Bandawe were recalled from the embassies but are yet to be alaigned in court on allegations of public money embazzlement.

There are also concerns that the Malawi foreign missions are not doing a good job as they were supposed to be because they are staffed by President Peter Mutharika’s inner circle children and relatives.